Starting January 1, 2023, Illinois employers are required to provide employees with unpaid bereavement leave following the loss of a family member or planned family addition. The Family Bereavement Leave Act (FBLA) amends Illinois’ Child Bereavement Leave Act of 2016 (CBLA) and adds Illinois to a short list of states (which includes only Oregon and Maryland) that require employers to provide for bereavement leave.
Under the CBLA, an employer covered by the Family Medical Leave Act must provide an FMLA-eligible employee with up to 10 working days of unpaid bereavement leave to attend the funeral of, make arrangements necessitated by the death of, or to grieve the death of the employee’s child. Employees will be eligible for the same amount of leave for the death of a “covered family member” and for the loss of a planned family addition. A “covered family member” includes a child, spouse, domestic partner, sibling, parent, parent-in-law, grandchild, grandparent, and step-parent. Covered losses beyond death include a miscarriage, an unsuccessful round of intrauterine insemination or other type of assisted reproduction, a failed adoption, a failed surrogacy, a stillbirth or a diagnosis that negatively affects fertility.
Employers can ask for reasonable documentation to support a leave request, but cannot require the employee to identify the category of event necessitating the leave.
As with the original law, employers do not have to provide employees with more unpaid...
On Sept. 18, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice announced updates to Justice Manual provisions governing False Claims Act (FCA) litigation. The updates (1) limit the use of nonbinding agency gui...